(upbeat electronic music) – Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I’m Link. – And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting we are exploring the question, are we are true selves on screen? (Link chuckles) Is the Rhett and Link that you’re seeing and hearing– – Right now. – Or hearing right now, the real Rhett and Link, or some creation designed for your entertainment? – Much less on GMM or like any other screen that you may see us on. Yeah, I think it’s gonna be some psychoanalysis going on here perhaps. I’ve got some juicy questions for the two of us to get into. And this conversation is inspired by a video that we made where we were asking each other questions recently, we’ll get into the details later but I’m not gonna say we had a disagreement afterward, but we had, there’s a few times where we’ll do a video or have a conversation on camera and then off camera we’ll talk about it and I just thought that that conversation that we didn’t monetize, we should monetize. (chuckles) Is basically– – Oh the off camera conversation. – The off camera analysis of the on camera conversation has led to this conversation. I’ll give all the background when we get to it, but let’s start in a lighter place. Anywhere you wanna go, I don’t know. – So, I was– – Not that that’s gonna be heavy. – I got a text from my friend Ralph. – Good ol’ Ralph. – Who I told the story of our skiing misadventures and how he had led me to the top of the mountain and– – Left you for dead. – Trouble getting down, I don’t know, just listen to whatever episode that was, one of the recent ones. And it was funny because well, and just as a sidebar, you can say what– – Oh yeah. – What Blandine had to say. – I was telling Rhett, I saw Blandine who was my Spartan Race partner for the first time since the race this morning ’cause we go to the gym at different times and we’re not training for a Spartan Race anymore and Christy had shared the podcast with her and so she said, “I will never hear my name the same again “after your friend kept saying it,” and I was like– – Blandine. (chuckles) – It’s like. (Rhett laughs) – I ruined her own name for her. – And another guy was there and I was like, he was listening, I was like yeah, when Rhett heard that her name was Blandine he made me feel weird about saying it. Oh, Blandine. – It’s just, it’s literally my favorite name I’ve ever heard. Wow, I love it. But anyway and then Ralph texts me– – She enjoyed the podcast, by the way. – Great. – Sharing Ear Biscuits with her friends and family. – That is the interesting thing. – We talk about people so that we can increase our listenership. – Okay, that’s one way to say it. – One person at a time, one victim at a time. – But there is this interesting dynamic of when someone is talked, okay, another example of this is we recently told the story of the pooping in the Tupperware. – Oh, oh yeah. (laughs) – And then our boys who were present for that– – Right. – Started a text thread and they’re like oh, here we go again. Every time you guys tell this story, we have to relive it and also tell you guys all the details that you get wrong. Including– – Yeah, and the ones that you’re getting right that you used to get wrong and the ones that you got right and now you’re getting wrong, it’s like– – Which is just the psychological concept of revisiting a memory and rewriting it every time, it’s just the way humans work but they did clarify one thing that I’ll clarify now and that is that Greg wasn’t even there. – How did he get there? – I think we’ve always said that Greg was there. – I don’t even know. – And somehow, Greg wasn’t there, so sorry Greg for being thrown under the bus all these years and pooping in that Tupperware that you didn’t poop in. But as is the case with Ralph when he texted me, he was just laughing about how he’d listen to the thing and he texted, in quotes, Ralph! With an exclamation point because there’s the moment in the story where I yell out his name. – Yeah. – And then his son had taken that moment and cut it into this just basically– – He made a super cut of Ralphs? – It was just me saying Ralph! Ralph! Ralph! Ralph! Ralph! Ralph! Ralph! – Video or just the audio? – Video, video. – Oh yeah, nice. – And so Ralph sent that to me. So every time we talk about somebody, there is, if they listen, then you have to kinda deal with whatever they think and the super cuts of you saying their name. – Yeah our friendship matrix is crumbling, I think is another way to put it. – Which leads me to the story that I wanna tell you because Ralph– – Ralph! – Did also text me, he said, what about the waiter story? I was like oh crap. – You didn’t tell the waiter story. – I didn’t tell anything about the waiter, okay so… We were in Mammoth, like I said, and we had been to Mammoth with this exact same family before. The year before, Ralph, his wife and kids. And so last year we went to, well, I’m trying to think of the best way to tell this story. Okay– – That’s something you could do before we do a podcast. – No I like to just– – That’s fine. – Pull it out of my butt as I go. – That’s fine, yeah. – So there’s two parts to it and I don’t know which part’s better but I think it’s better to start with part two and then tell you how it relates to part one. – You know what, just do it and then Ralph’s son will edit it in the best way later and send it to his dad. – So here’s what, so we’re eating at this restaurant, relatively new restaurant in Mammoth and we’re all sitting, it’s a big group. There’s four of us in our family, there’s five of them, that makes nine and so we’re all sitting at this table and you know the situation where you’re in the middle of a conversation and a waiter approaches the table and– – They’re kinda hovering. – There’s a little bit of a power play that happens and some waiters are better at managing the situation than others and there’s also people, interestingly, I think this might even play into our conversations of who’s, what we’re like in real life, as an example, if you’re in the middle of saying something in real life and a waiter comes up, chances that you stop for the waiter are pretty small. If I’m telling something and a waiter comes up, chances are pretty high that I’m going to stop. That’s just, you may think that’s the opposite of the way it would be but in real life, that’s actually, it might be ’cause you don’t notice but you’re also one to be like, I’m gonna get this thought out and then there’ll be a break and this guy can say, but so, somebody else was talking and didn’t see this waiter standing there. And he stood there and he just started going… Like making a mouth noise. – Chewing something? – Was like, this is his warning system. It was awkward, and eventually, the conversation came to a close and he stood there, made one last mouth smacking noise and then paused. It’s weird and uncomfortable, and then said, “Hello folks, how are you today?” And then proceeded to do the normal waiter things but in a way that his energy made me feel and everyone else feel uncomfortable. It was just like– – It was an animosity? – No no, it was not an animosity at all, it was just a weirdness. It was a social weirdness that just made us feel strange and like– – Well. – Just pausing at certain times and then staying in one place and then not leaving early enough after you’re like, you finished a sentence. It was like everything was a little bit off time in a way that just makes you feel uncomfortable and uneasy. So he has this interaction with us and then he leaves and everybody’s kinda like that was kinda weird, and then I was like hold on a second. I’m gonna change his name because I legitimately don’t want this guy to listen to this podcast. – Call him Justin. – Justin. – What if his name was Justin and I suggested it and you’re like– – It wasn’t. – Let’s not call him Justin. – I was like, our waiter’s name is Justin. – What, okay. You just said what the waiter’s name, you knew the waiter’s real name which isn’t Justin and you said it. – And I said last year, at a different restaurant, we had this exact same experience and exact same conversation– – Did they remember it? – And everybody started being like oh you’re right, that is the same guy, the same haircut and the mustache and it’s the same guy. It’s Justin. And he proceeds to do exactly the same thing that he did the first time which we got such a kick out of it the first time around, like this guy was so awkward and the way he would pause and the way he would stay at your table and then, like imagine just you’re taking somebody’s order and then as you get done, you’re like, is there anything else you need? And you’re like nope and he’s just like– – It’s like a robot downloading– – He waits four seconds– – His next line. – Makes you feel weird like what is going on? And then he did it again, his technique, new restaurant, same technique, and– – You think he got fired from the other place for his pauses and whatnot? – No because first of all, I was like, he came back and I was like, Justin, right? He was like yeah, I was like– – I remember you, your weird waitering from last year. – I said, “You were our waiter last year at “blah blah blah blah restaurant in Mammoth,” and he said, “Oh yeah, I don’t miss that place.” (laughs) – Oh. – And okay, I don’t know what happened. I’m not gonna ask any questions but it was just, it was a, it was just one of those moments that this guy left this– – He didn’t remember anything. – Indelible mark on us and then he did it again and we realized deja vu way, it was happening at the same time and we’re like no, it’s just the same guy happening at a different restaurant. This is what he does. – And the moral of the story, no there doesn’t have to be a moral but here’s the freaky thing. It reminds me of a story I didn’t tell you but from Cabo which is very short and it’s not much– – You had a weird waiter? – Well you know, as I explained, I went back to the same, we went back to the same resort that we had gone to like a couple of years. Actually it may have been three years early the more I thought about it, okay? And there’s a restaurant at The Cape and the first night we were there, both times, we’ve made a reservation there ’cause it’s really nice, it’s a really good restaurant. And we went there and we sat, they were gonna seat us and I was like can you seat us outside? ‘Cause I was thinking it was great, it’s what we did last time. We go, we sit outside and then all of a sudden, the waiter comes up and he’s like asking us have we been here, we’re like yes. We get our waters. He goes away and I’m like, Christy. That is the same waiter from three years ago. Same guy. And then he comes back up and we’re like, we’re looking at him and before we say anything, he was like, you’ve been here before. And he remembered us but he wasn’t weird at all. He just gained some weight so he looked different. – I’m gonna keep this going, because your story reminds me of another small story from my recent trip to Cabo. – What? – Yes. – What? – Hey, this is an all new way to do a whole podcast. That reminds me– – Of a story that’s not that great that I’m gonna tell. – No, this one’s good. – Okay. But before you tell it, I will just say that like, we felt a special connection with this guy, like our first night in Cabo, our first time, it was like it kinda made the evening that like, oh and he said, “I remember you ’cause it was my first day.” – What? – “Of working here.” – Even better. – And so we were special to him, he was special to us. The food was special, the whole thing was special. – And he was like and this is my last day. No that didn’t happen? – No we were like, when are you off the clock? – You wanna hang? – We invited him up to our room, we all got in the bath tub together. – Oh cool. – It was very special. I don’t know why I didn’t mention it before. – Yeah, right. – Very special. – Okay we’ll skip that last part. So– – Full service there at the resort. – Oh, I go to a restaurant at the resort on the first night and it’s the restaurant at the main restaurant. And we get this waiter and he’s a good waiter. He’s not weird, nothing particularly notable about him. But we order two, each order a cocktail, then we order two appetizers and then we each order an entree and then we each order, then we order two desserts, okay, this is a pretty complex order. We stay at the resort for three days. The last night, we go back to the restaurant and we get the same waiter. He says, “Oh, you’re back.” Like yeah, I mean this is the resort, this is the restaurant at the resort. – Yeah, full circle. I’m kinda trapped here. – He said, “How’s your stay,” whatever, he was like, I can tell you what you ordered the other night. And he went through every single item and was right. – And you were like, I’ll take none of that ’cause I’ve already had it. – And I said, “Well we wanna get completely “different things this time.” But hold on but– – There’s a through line with all these stories, it’s like– – That’s interesting, is it not? – It is interesting when it’s happening but then when you re-tell it, I’m just gonna be honest, the more I thought about it– – No no no. – You went to a place in Mammoth. You were served by a waiter, you went to another place, he moved restaurants. I went to a place three years later. It’s not unheard of that a waiter would still be working at a place three years later and it’s not unheard of a few days later that even– – The whole– – Big order. – No. – He would remember. Did you make him go through it? – Yes, he said, I think it’s a party trick. He was like, I can tell you what you had and he went through everything, cocktails– – So maybe that’s the more impressive of the three stories. – Hold on, it’s one thing to be one of those waiters who remembers your order and doesn’t write it down which always makes me nervous, by the way. But this guy remembered the order from three days before. He’s got multiple customers a night. – Yeah. – That’s crazy. – Well, that’s– – He should be like on a math team. – That’s pretty impressive. – Like a memory team. He shouldn’t be a waiter. – That justifies the rabbit trail we’ve just gone down. I’ll say that. – Okay, we are gonna not, we’re not gonna talk about waiters anymore. – But hold on, I just remembered. We did experience another waiter that remembered us one time when we went somewhere. Remember he remembered us? We were with Stevie, we were like traveling and we were freaking out. – Well so the way we’re gonna end this is– – When a waiter remembers you– – This is a fourth story that doesn’t– – It freaks you out. – Doesn’t really amount to anything. – But then when you tell it, it’s kinda like– – I think all our stories were great until that last one. – It’s a you had to be there kinda thing. That’s a great podcast. I’m gonna tell you stories that you really have to be there to appreciate. – We’re gonna talk about whether or not we are our true selves on screen but first we’re gonna let you know that Link is wearing a shirt from our storywear collection. – Yeah. – The Post-Apawcalypse. – That’s right. In a post apocalyptic world, dogs take over because humans are relegated as pets. I ain’t complainin’. – And there’s a whole series, there’s a whole collection. There’s multiple shirts that are t-shirts. There’s– – Pants. – There’s sweatpants. – There’s a bandana. – There’s a button-up shirt, there’s a bandana. What else is there? – There’s a denim shirt. – A denim, well you gotta button it. – Check it out. – You gotta button it. – Bandanas. – Bandanas– – Every item tells a story. – Complete your story with storywear at Mythical.store. – Okay so, here’s how I want to set this up. If you don’t know, we got this thing called the Mythical Society, it is a secret society. MythicalSociety.com, check it out. We’re doing vlogs over there, one a month, exclusive, where we’re talking directly to the society members but one of the things that we did was we got questions, suggestions for questions submitted that we would ask each other and one of those questions that was asked for you to ask me just led to an, I haven’t watched the vlog back. I mean you can watch it yourself but we’ll unpack it a little bit but it kinda led to a conversation that led to a post conversation. Meaning a second conversation off camera after that conversation where we, I just thought there were some emotions that bubbled to the surface that I just thought it would be interesting for us to talk about. So here was the question. They asked Rhett, Rhett can you ask Link, can you ask Cotton Candy Randy to be nicer to Link? – Right. – And that was the question that, hold on, that you asked me, right? – I– – No, I asked you that question. And then you started to answer it and then I was like, and you were like, what do you think about it? I think that’s how it went. – Well regardless, I can’t remember who asked who the question but it was, a fan wanted Cotton Candy Randy to be nicer to Link and I don’t know whether that person was just asking a joke question or if they were serious, but so that specific person I don’t know what they were going for but for me, that made me think about the fact that I do see, first of all, we already know that like, Cotton Candy Randy is very polarizing because he’s a negative energy, there’s just some people who aren’t into that and so, there’s a lot of people who don’t like him and there’s people who really, really like him. In fact, there are lots of people who, of all the things that we’ve ever done comedically in the world of Good Mythical Morning, Cotton Candy Randy is their favorite thing because it’s the most subversive thing, well one of the most subversive things that we’ve done and it kinda goes against type that we’ve established on GMM in a lot of ways so a lot of people just, that’s their thing and they really like it. – Yeah he’s a twisted and demented character whose head and facial hair is made out of cotton candy and when kids eat too much candy, he’s gonna show up and whisper sweet nothings in their ear, meaning he is going to terrorize them throughout their sleep cycle. He’s like a anti tooth fairy. – And he, one notable thing about him is he really dislikes you. – Yeah. – The bit is– – He really likes you. – Is that he, well, he likes to whisper things to me and I, regardless of how demented they are, always seem to enjoy it, right? – You really enjoy it, yeah. – And then you, he always says very mean things to you and apparently he wants you dead. I mean that’s, I think that’s Cotton Candy Randy in a nutshell, and I thought this was an opportunity, what I was doing at the time is I was like, you know, this is a inside conversation, Mythical Society, that’s one of the things that’s about is like let’s have a conversation that we wouldn’t necessarily have elsewhere, probably on Ear Biscuits maybe but anyway, so I said, what I was trying to do is I was trying to set you up so that you could say what I want to hear because you know me, I of course love Cotton Candy Randy. I like subversive things. That kinda comedy really appeals to me and I get legitimately annoyed with people who have a problem with that. Now, I don’t expect, there’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t like him and I know in comedy he’s incredibly polarizing and I don’t expect everybody to like him and in fact, one of the reasons I do like him is because I know that people don’t like him, that’s how my brain works. – But there may be something, so there’s nothing wrong with respecting someone else’s comedic opinion of Cotton Candy Randy but there may be something wrong and we’ll, there may be another thing that you’re taking issue with which is a misunderstanding of what’s going on. The thing that you did was, you asked me the question, you kinda threw the ball to me, you were like, so what would you say to that, Link? Do you think that’s a good idea or whatever, and I was like well, I think that would be silly to ask Cotton Candy Randy to be nice to me because Cotton Candy Randy is a character. – Right. – And the reason why we interpreted it that way that someone was asking it sincerely is because there are a lot of seemingly sincere comments online, I think you see ’em a lot more than I do because they may be, I don’t know why, if you’re looking for them or if they @ you but not me or something, or maybe I just don’t read ’em, but because another way to interpret it was, it would be a funny bit if you asked Cotton Candy Randy to be nice to Link, which that might be a good choice. That may be a good suggestion but I’m pretty sure that’s not what was behind the question. – And what it kinda led to for me was, okay, obviously there is a certain dynamic between the two of us and we kind of and this is why we’re having this conversation because it plays into the greater question that we’re asking today which is are we our true selves on camera? There’s a, in the comedic duo of who we are, there is a certain dynamic where you kinda play this role where you are, if we’re gonna do a bit that’s on brand or according to type– – Yeah on type. – If the show is doing a prank, it’s probably gonna be done on you, right? If we’re gonna have a pill that makes you lose the ability to taste spicy foods like we did that one episode, well, it’s probably gonna be the most true to type if I’m in the know and you don’t know and we’re playing the prank on you, right? And so, that’s just, now first, obviously we can do it the opposite way and it goes against type and it’s funny for a different reason, but also, if we have a character like Cotton Candy Randy, and this wasn’t a discussion, nobody ever discussed this. Jordan invented Cotton Candy Randy. – Yeah we never said he’s gonna– – How he was gonna act– – Like Rhett, he’s gonna hate Link. – But as he entered into the dynamic of Rhett and Link, his natural sort of comedic inclination was that wouldn’t it be funny if I just hated Link and whispered weird things to Rhett and so, there’s enough of that kind of thing that has happened over the years that there is a segment of the Mythical Beasts who are like why you gotta be picking on Link? Why is Link the butt of so many jokes? – Right. – And so what I was asking you to do as, from a comedy standpoint– – Yes. – Is to basically say, hey guys, that’s part of our comedy and you shouldn’t feel sorry for me. – Right, so– – Right. – As a side note, I think that the spicy pill prank that was played on me was a bad example and we should come back to it. So let’s not forget to come back to that ’cause I think that that’s, that doesn’t work. But it’s a good analysis– – Doesn’t work in this context? – It doesn’t prove your point. Once we analyze it later, but the Cotton Candy Randy thing, I mean it’s obviously Jordan, of course if you don’t know Jordan, somebody who’s, it’s not a dude, it’s a fake beard made out of cotton candy, it is a character. – Yeah he’s not a real person. – So we’ve entered this mode where it’s not scripted, it’s totally improv, but it’s, we’re not being ourselves, we’re just playing, we’re playing things for comedic effect entirely so, but the thing that I found interesting was even though I gave the right answer, it was a little bit different than what you were looking for and that’s fine but I think it’s fascinating so that’s the only reason I wanna talk about it. ‘Cause I said my answer was, well, if you ask Cotton Candy Randy to be nice to me, I think that’s a silly request because obviously the comedy is in, and this is me talking to them, the comedy is in him being mean to me, that’s just, it’s funny. And me acting as if my feelings are hurt is part of the comedy too, like that sells it, right? And I’m like, I wanted to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, I didn’t wanna, it doesn’t get to me as much it does to you so then at that point I didn’t tap into any frustration. I was just like, I wanna give them the benefit of the doubt and say, now, I don’t have to tell you that he’s a character and that we just made that choice but I do think there’s people out there who are issuing complaints and who– – Yeah. – Think that, but you know, then you went into this bit about, well but do you like the sympathy? And I just, I think what was behind that is, you get more frustrated than I do and I respect that. Because it’s like, well, maybe you should articulate it. – Well I think– – What about it frustrates you because I think it’s a valid frustration. – Well I mean, I think there’s a lot of things that fall under this umbrella. Somebody not getting the joke always frustrates me. Somebody saying, again, this is a– – I think when you become, when you don’t get the joke it’s kinda like, oh I’m a comedian and it didn’t work but then when the byproduct is you’re the bad guy. – Yeah. – It’s kinda frustrating when people, I mean… The Mythical Beasts aren’t that rude but they feel like they need to take up for me and they direct it at you. – I feel like, and again, I’m probably generalizing, right, and I’m not, even though we know a lot of Mythical Beasts by name or by Twitter handle and that kinda thing, no individuals come to mind so it’s not like I have any grudges against anybody but it seems to me, in my mind, what I’ve constructed in my mind is that there’s a certain fan who, what they like about us is just what they perceive as the genuine Rhett and Link. But when it comes to our comedy that we’re actually, when we’re trying to be comedians– – Right. – And making comedic choices like thoughtful comedic choices that are more of an artistic approach, they’re kinda like, I don’t like that, like they don’t like our local commercials. There’s a whole segment of people, in fact, one of the reasons we stopped making our local commercials is because we just couldn’t deal with so many people misunderstanding what we were trying to do comedically. Interestingly, when we hang out with legitimate comedians, professional comedians, a lot of times the only point of reference they have from us is our local commercials and so in our minds, from a comedic standpoint is those local commercials that we made– – That’s a craft. – It’s the, potentially the best work we’ve ever done but there’s a not an insignificant percentage of Mythical Beasts who are like, that’s the stupidest thing that you guys have ever done. And so that, I can’t come up with an analogy but it’s almost just like, if you consider yourself to be an artist and you’re like, my best work is this thing and then this thing that I kinda do incidentally, that’s the thing that you’re all connecting with and you’re not connecting with this thing that actually was really, really thoughtful and is my best effort. And then I think it carries over to, again, I think it’s taking us so seriously as people that it’s just like well sometimes the bit between us as a duo is that my character is going to make fun of you and say mean things, or some other character in our universe like Cotton Candy Randy’s gonna say mean things and then I get tweets and I see comments about, why’s he gotta be so mean to Link and I’m like, guys. It’s a freaking joke. – And I think here on Ear Biscuits– – And that just frustrates me. – Yeah. I think you can anticipate that Ear Biscuits is a much more real version of who we are so I’m not holding anything that you don’t already know so in this environment, I think that I definitely make fun of you a lot more here and the real you than I do on the show. Because, but we both know that there’s comedy in that here ’cause we’re not just totally talking, we’re making fun of each other because it’s funny. But in the context of GMM, so much of the strength of the show rides on the impromptu honestly of the moments, like there’s so many things that happen that by design we don’t know. I think we’ve talked about this before. But there are times when we go into comedy bits and there’s… That balance shifts from moment to moment. There are entire episodes that are planned like when you go into a conspiracy thing about how Finland doesn’t exist. Okay, bombshell, can you please come clean about what you think about Finland? – You mean the country that doesn’t exist? – He has a choice to make here. Do you really believe– – Yeah and– – Can you say it? Of course. – I think that most people probably, I would say that 90, there’s definitely 1% of the people watching who think that I legitimately believe the conspiracy theories and there’s nothing I’m ever– – Just say it. You don’t believe what? – I believe that Finland is a real country. – Oh, he did it. That was a big milestone. No it’s not because, and you kinda know, you’ve suspended your disbelief and we’re going into this bit and we like to do it. Does it get the most views? No but it’s a comedic choice, you know– – And I’m actually making– – It’s more craft work. – And I’m actually– – Like the band. – I’m actually very unlikely to believe conspiracy theories in real life. – Yeah you’re making fun, yeah. – I’m an extreme– – You probably should have changed your name and– – I’m an extreme skeptic right and so I actually find conspiracy theorists to be funny. Like I find them funny. – Well I mean in terms of– – And so I think that they’re– – But in terms of a mode you look at The Colbert Report. Not the show now but the transition is fascinating because that was brilliant. I mean there’s a reason why I think it won Emmys or should have, and he did because it was absolutely brilliant what he did. – Right, but– – And it worked on a number of levels. So we aspire to things like that. – What is the Venn diagram of the people who don’t like Cotton Candy Randy who also don’t like Stephen Colbert? I would say there is a very high crossover. That– – I know so I think what you’re getting at is I think the frustration is that there are people in our GMM audience who they, and I think I understand why they’re like that, they wanna take everything at face value because we present it that way. I think that, I think the reason why I wanted to have this conversation is if some of those people are listening or watching, that we can kind of educate where we’re coming from to free them up to enjoy more of the entire breadth of what GMM is and also to kinda alleviate your frustration a little bit. I think that’s kinda my ulterior motive in this thing. There’s also this complaint about the show being scripted which again is a different thing. But I think it’s related a little bit. And again, we go out in and out of scripted moments. We shouldn’t have to, I think people are so attached to the impromptu honesty of the show that if there’s anything that’s planned, like I can tell that they had thought about that joke ahead of time, like well, we could be better at delivering some jokes sometimes but, and the top of the show, we plan out what we’re gonna say so that we can get into it quicker so we can just be more succinct. They’re just different modes in the show that I think, I think it’s an opportunity to make it more fun to say, okay, I don’t know exactly, it’s all about sensing what mode we’re working in. And then saying, sometimes it’s blurry and it kinda shifts and I think that’s a fun aspect of the show so I get frustrated when people criticize when we’re not just acting in the 100% impromptu mode, you know, the entire 100% unplanned mode. I won’t say honest, I’ll say unplanned ’cause I do think there’s a difference. – Right and I probably personally receive the brunt of that complaint more simply because… Okay, we did fact-based games on GMM. We did it back and forth for a really long time, but those of you who’ve sort of observed patterns of GMM probably learned that okay, if we’re gonna play a fact-based game, I host it and you play it. That’s just what we’ve arrived at. – Right. – And because we each fit those roles better than the other, right? It’s like, you not having any clue as to what I’m going to ask and what you’re gonna say sets you up to say really funny things. Funnier things than I would be saying if I was just thinking of things off the top of my head. But I’m pretty good at saying jokes that I thought about ahead of time. So I think that, I don’t know, I mean it’s, I don’t sit around thinking about this a lot, but there is this sort of underlying thing that I just kind of understand that there is some percentage and I don’t know what it is, of people who kinda perceive it, perceive the show in that way and then a lot of that is kinda focused at me because I’m the one that’s the source of those things. I might be the source of more of the scripted jokes, I might be a source of more of the negative, the negative energy when it comes to the humor. And so people who are like I don’t like that, I don’t like anything that’s negative, I don’t like anything that’s scripted. It’s just like okay well, I don’t like what Rhett brings to the show. So I think that when I talk about those things, I end up kind of, that’s where the frustration comes from. – I think that we have such a wide range in age that watches the show. There’s a level of maturity required to start to parse the different modes that we work in and get to the point that I’m asking for which is that it becomes something that you appreciate and enjoy, the question mark of… I do think that’s, there’s certain things like when we’re blindfolded or when we’re playing a game and we’re not supposed to know stuff, I’ll just go on record and say that we don’t cheat. I know Stevie cheated that one time, it was a joke on us and you played the joke on me with the pill which again I’ll get back to later, but we don’t cheat when it comes to games and things like that. – Yeah, things where the idea is that we’re not in on, we’re not in on it, then we’re not in on it, like on purpose, like we keep things from ourselves so that we can have authentic reactions to the things that we need to. – But I wanna tell you a story of a conversation I had with Lando which helped me… I just came to a realization about how he perceived me, how he perceived the show, and then I ended up talking to Lily and Christy about it. I invited him on the show to kick me in the balls when we were doing the, testing the jock straps ’cause the plan was you were gonna get Shep to kick you in the balls, Lando was gonna kick me. And if you watch that episode, Shep ended up kicking both of us in the balls ’cause as I explained, Lando said he didn’t wanna do it. And then in Good Mythical More he did come on and he said a little bit more about it but that night, I was tucking him in bed and like, I got in bed with him and I was just hanging out beside him and we could have more of a conversation. It was one of those things where it’s like, it’s not your bedtime yet but go ahead and get ready for bed, that way it’s not, ’cause I wanna go to bed earlier too. So we had a few minutes to have a longer conversation than normal. And we were laying there and he said, “Do you still hurt from getting hit this morning?” Meaning when Shepherd hit me in the balls, now, I mean he kicked me in the balls. I don’t even know if all the times he kicked me in the balls made the edit ’cause he would kinda, we had to cut out times we would kinda miss, but he gave me two direct hits. And I crumple over on the ground and I’m like, I gave anything on America’s Funniest Home Videos a run for their money because it was a direct hit. My crotch is lower to the ground than yours. I don’t think he took that into account. – What you trying to say? – You’re taller than me and I’m more of a man than you. – Oh, that’s what you’re saying. – My crotch hangs lower. – Okay. – It was all crumpled up in a cup, let’s– – Yeah it was protected. – But then the cup hitting the sides of your, what is that called, it’s not the taint ’cause it’s on the right and left side. The raighnt and the leighnt, right and left. – I don’t think we need– – That’s where the ball, where the cup hits. – I don’t think we need an explanation. I think everybody understands. – It was the most sincere, tender question, no pun intended. Do you still hurt from when you got hit today? And I was like, well it did hurt. But not as bad as I made it sound. I wanted to tell him that because I could tell how concerned he was for me, it was like super cute. I was also honest, it did hurt, but not as bad as I made it seem, and he said, “Well why would you make it hurt more than it did?” And I said, “To be funny.” (Rhett chuckles) And he didn’t laugh. He got this puzzled look on his face and he was just kinda like, he could not make sense of it. And I said, “I did it to make the show funny.” And he said, “Do you know what Bitcoin is?” (laughs) And I was like, I was like I’m not gonna sit here and explain to you what Bitcoin is. It’s your bedtime. Like, you’re not– – That was the end of the conversation? – I’m not gonna fall for this trick. And I was like, so do you know what it means? Do you know what Bitcoin is? And, he said, “No.” He was like, do you know what Bitcoin is? I’m like, okay I guess I am falling for this. – He doubted that you knew what Bitcoin was. – I thought for a second, I was like no, not really, well, I mean it’s cryptocurrency. And he was like, oh so you do know what Bitcoin means. And I was like, well yeah, I do. He was like, well then why on your show did you keep guessing Bitcoin for the answer to the question? And I remembered, we played a game where we had to fill in the blank on something and he was watching at home, he wasn’t there that day and I kept writing in Bitcoin as the answer. – Yeah, I don’t know what game it was, I remember. – And I remembered that when he asked me if I knew what Bitcoin was, why would I keep giving it as the answer for other questions. And I was like, to be funny. – You teaching him comedy? – And I could see the wheels turning and I could tell, I was like, oh wow. My own son is realizing that his dad is not as stupid as he thought he was. (Rhett laughs) – Oh that’s hilarious. – And I was like, if he would have understood this yesterday, he’d have kicked me in the balls this morning. So that’s what I should have explained to him. – You think he would have? – I think so, yeah. Now, so for the record, it did hurt. It really hurt. But I also took full advantage of the comedic opportunity presented to me to convey the fact that it was shockingly painful. – Oh, it was, Jacob just pointed out, that was on– – He was in that episode. – It was the holiday list. – He was there. He does watch the show if he’s not in it but he was physically present there and that’s why he remembered the Bitcoin thing, and he’d been puzzling on it for all this time. So yeah I’m like dang, you must think I’m kinda stupid. Yeah I’m not as stupid, but then I went out and I tucked him in, so he went to sleep and then I went into Lily’s room to tell her goodnight and I ended up telling her what I just told you. Probably in a truncated version. There were no sponsors involved. And she was laughing and I was like, I mean, do you think I’m stupid? (Rhett laughs) – This is funny. – And I’m like, I kinda really wanna know, I was like, well, the what age do my kids start realizing I’m not stupid? And I ended up talking to her and Christy about it and they, it wasn’t an easy answer. (laughs) ‘Cause, very quickly one of the things they brought up was, well you know, Dad, remember when we watched that video, Link struggling for seven minutes straight. – From @Youresoloud? – @Youresoloud made. – [Rhett] He puts different hair on and then he takes it off at this point and realize, and reveals, hey I’m– – That I tweeted because I thought it was so funny, like we’re all laughing our heads off and like, I think I tweeted that Christy was like, welcome to every day of my life kinda thing. And I think the point was that we discussed was that well, in some ways you might be. (Rhett chuckles) As stupid as you are on the show and this is coming from the people that love me the most and I guess felt safe enough to tell me. They knew watching that cut down and living with me, like Christy said, welcome to my life, that it’s not like that all the time, but it’s definitely like that some of the time. I mean, I think… And I was like well, I got a little defensive and I was like, well, it’s not that I’m stupid, it’s just that I can suspend my intelligence. (Rhett laughs) – Wow, that’s good. – I think that’s what I do. You know, if you’re watching a movie or something, you suspend your disbelief. I suspend my intelligence, I can disconnect the things that would stop me from saying things, that I just say on instinct or wielding sharp objects in a way that no one has business doing. I can just turn that off and say, you know what, this is the mode that I operate in. – Well but I think that stupid is the wrong word for those things, I mean– – If you’re gonna come up with a harsher word– – No, I mean I think that like, okay, the thing that Christy probably deals with, is she would probably call you absent-minded. – Yeah. – You know what I’m saying? – I ask her where stuff is that’s in my pocket all the time. – Right, which is not stupid. I mean like there are… Einstein was probably absent-minded. The absent-minded professor, it’s not stupid. But then things like the, like when you put the cat, I don’t remember what happened when you spit, you drank water. – [Crew] No no no no no no. – What? Oh, yeah. Oh, that was the wrong end. I drank– – You drank cat water through a thing– – Poop water. – And then you put your mouth back on the thing. – Yeah. – That’s not an– – My intelligence was suspended. – That’s what you’re saying for that? To me, I don’t think that that’s stupid, I just think that that is, like an accident-prone. – Cautiouslessly impulsive. – Yeah I don’t know what the word is but I just think it’s, you are more likely to injure yourself with a knife than I am, but you’re not gonna injure– – And I have in real life, I mean the stories that I tell. – It isn’t that– – Are true stories. – It isn’t like you can’t actually ever hold a knife, it’s just that no, because Link is the one who’s more likely to do something with a knife, it’s a funny bit that every time he has a sharp object, I’m going to take it from him because that’s taking something that isn’t untrue, which I think is kinda getting to the bigger question that we’re asking, is taking something that is based in truth and exaggerating it for the sake of comedy. And that is, I mean, incidentally, that’s what we do whenever we script something. That’s what– – We even go further. – The second season of Buddy System. – Yeah was like three notches above that. – It isn’t like– – In a thought exercise alternate universe, we never knew each other kinda way. – Right, and it’s just like, it was extreme caricatures, right, your character was an extreme caricature of you in a way that people may not even be able to follow the logic to get to that point, to understand why we ended up, maybe even more so with my character in like the weird hippie stuff and the man bun and all this stuff, but all that kinda came out of well, I am the one that kinda gets into some new idea or philosophy and learns a lot about and adopts it and suddenly starts trying to tell you about it and that kinda thing, and so if I were to do that unhinged, unimpeded, I might eventually get to a place where I was this weird dude who wore all these weird clothes and adopted this weird religion. – What do you think, what’s your question to my, is Link as stupid in real life as he is on the show? I elected to frame it in that harsh way. I’ll let you come up with your own but what’s your version of that question? Is Rhett as blank in real life as he is on the show? – Probably smart. – Oh God. (Rhett laughs) Okay, pivot that. – Is Rhett as self-absorbed? – I don’t think that that comes across in the show. I’m not gonna– (chuckles) – No it’s like no it’s like– – Try again. – One– – I don’t think that’s it. – No but one– – ‘Cause I don’t think that comes across in the show. I do have something in mind. – But let me explain though. Like… Like a know-it-all quality of like being confident and cocky about being able to do something. Like that’s an element of my character but it’s also an element of my personality. That comes from who I am but no, I am not that way in my interpersonal interactions with normal, everyday people. I’m that way when I’m in my comedic element. – I don’t think that comes across on the show. I think it could come across in real life at times, but that’s now what we’re talking about. I think it’s more of, here’s my pitch. Is Rhett just as mean, I think that’s the criticism again, is Rhett as mean in real life as he is on the show? Link is stupid and Rhett is mean. It’s like, that’s what you’re saying that you get the criticism that why you so mean to Link? You know, it’s like– – Yeah. I would– – And I don’t, maybe that’s not the right one either. – I mean okay if we go down that path, I would say that… I would think that no one that knows me, I would say that if people who are my best friends were to list my top 10 negative attributes, I would be willing to bet a significant amount of money that one of those top 10 would not be that I’m mean. I think that that is, I am not a mean person. That’s not, I’m actually– – Right. – I’m actually, in my estimation, too nice of a person. We’ve talked about this before that I’m a people pleaser and I laugh at people’s jokes when they’re not funny and I try to accommodate people who are being awkward and stuff like that. So I’m not a mean person but I think in the context of our characters, and also the context of us as– – Maybe it’s just intensity. ‘Cause I don’t think that mean is, I think that’s a criticism that’s leveled against you but I don’t think that’s a character trait. That’s a misinterpretation of what we’ve already, the comedic bits that we’ve already talked about. But an intensity that’s like, the furrowed brow and the– – I mean. – And you’re not grumpy on the show either so it’s like. Maybe you’re just stupid too, just go with that. Are you as stupid in real life as I am in the show? (chuckles) – I mean what is your estimation on that? ‘Cause I haven’t thought about this specifically. I think a lot about the fact that if people were to just look at the two of us and how we present ourselves on the internet, that they would be like, Rhett seems like, I guess mean is not the word that I would use but let’s just go with that. Rhett seems like he would be mean. Link seems like he would be really nice. – Yeah. – And then of course, my argument is that, well, that’s not true. – I also think, here’s what I think it is. I think you are much closer to your true self on the show than I am. I think that there’s more of a, that there’s more of a heightened thing with me, with my character on the show. I think that’s maybe more my opinion. – Yeah I think that– – And then when you go against type, that’s funny– – But I think that most of the people who would characterize me as mean on the show would probably characterize me as mean in real life. – Right that’s what I’m saying because they misinterpret– – Because again– – Just being intense. – There are some people who don’t respond well to intensity at all. And like me and you deal with that. I get passionate and intense about things and then people who have more sensitive personality types tend to take intensity personally. – Yeah. – Like me and you have had to work through that as we’ve discussed things, it’s just like– – And you tend to be more focused on the rightness of something or the correctness of something than the… Whether it’s right or wrong versus the way it’s presented. – And it’s more, are we haven’t a philosophical conversation or are we having a personal conversation? – Right. – And so and this is not, again, this is just part of my personality makeup. This is part of the personality makeup that I’m addressing in therapy to one degree ’cause I’m very, very much in my head and spend a lot of time up here thinking about things and then I don’t translate those things into feelings and they end up kinda coming up sideways in certain ways. – But I think that people, I think, well I’ll speak about you first and then I’ll speak about myself but I think that you harness… People resonate and might be more of a fan of you than me if the ideas and the, the ideas resonate more. It’s like I’m not gonna give a lot of, not as much of ideas in the way that you are. I think that again, when the comedy comes mostly from your head, it’s gonna have a certain flavor to it that I think mine comes from a different place. That’s why I stopped posting the episodes. The fact-based episodes because we find how our makeup leads into our comedic strengths. So we’re able to say in a room, you know what, it would be better if I never hosted another one of those ’cause Rhett, you’re so much better at it, and it’s better for me not to know what’s happening and with this free wheeling response, we’re hoping to capture something. – Mm-hmm. – Right, and that’s a good, that’s the best that we have both of those things we contribute. And I don’t know if I’ve said this on podcast before but I remember that, you know, it kinda felt like it hurt at the moment where I, it felt like it was admitting, yeah I can’t do that, so that’s one less thing I can do. I kinda suck at that, you know. As opposed to, and then, I had to go through a process of coming to grips with and being secure in the strengths that I did have to offer in saying this is the perfect way to allow for that. – Well and to– – For both of us I guess. – To platform you, like I said. First of all, once we get going in certain modes, both of us being reactive and in the moment really works. – Yeah, yeah. – But– – It’s not that I never have ideas and it’s not that you never have hilarious reactions. – But if we have to push ourselves into a corner and say okay, well one of, if we’re gonna create a situation in where one person knows what’s happening and is operating according to a plan, and one person doesn’t know what’s happening, who’s going to flourish in those? – Who’s gonna know about the pill and who’s not? – Right and Link is going to be funnier, and again, that’s kinda why I thought that that was an example. I know what you’re saying, it’s not an example of you playing a character. – Yeah we were not choosing comedic sides. – But you are going to– – I didn’t choose anything. It was a legitimate prank and I fell for it. – You are going, the things that you’re going to say in that moment where you’re trying to convince yourself that this thing works, it’s gonna be funnier than what I’m gonna say. – But I also– – 10 out of 10 times– – I also don’t think that the chances of successfully convincing you of that were very low and the chances of convincing me of it were also very high. – Right, there’s a high chance that in the midst of that, I would be like, this is a prank, and two reasons. Well, I think it’s ultimately just one reason. I think it’s because if I begin to suspect that it’s a prank, I’m probably gonna point it out. Even if you did begin to suspect it was a prank, you would suspend your intelligence. (chuckles) – Yes. – And go with this bit and continue to carry it out whereas, I don’t have that in me. – So for the record I did not do that. – Right, you, we got you. We really got you. – You got me. – And that’s when it’s funniest. – I still haven’t watched that one back. I would watch that one back. – Well and because it’s not as funny when you have to do it intentionally. It’s funnier when you’re being authentic. – And that would be a hard thing to do anyway, but you know, I do feel like people– – But you know what– – People feel sorry for me and that’s the thing that I do want to address. – Well but before we get to that because I do think, to play into the question, I knew that it would be funny in the context of the show, but if there wasn’t a camera there and I was just like, I’m gonna prank, I do not, we don’t prank each other. Again, this is a little bit what’s on screen and what’s in real life? We don’t prank each other. We’ve never pranked each other. It isn’t in our makeup to be like I’m gonna take time just for the hell of it to just prank you at work just to see what the reaction is. And a lot of it has to with the fact that so much of what we do is a product that people can see and so if we’re gonna take the time to do something like that, to engineer something, well, you can bet that it’s going to be online. But it’s also just like, that’s not our personalities. It’s not our personalities to find some way to mess with each other like that. And also, if I were to do that, if I were to, for some reason to decide that I was gonna prank you, your reaction to a prank that wasn’t being filmed would be like 10% as entertaining as your reaction to a prank if you were being filmed and you knew it. And it isn’t because you’re acting, it’s just that when you’re on and when the camera’s on– – I just don’t have that much energy. – You’re in a mode where you’re like, I’m reacting, I’m processing things out loud and that is a recipe for entertainment. – And you know what– – Whereas, if you’re just by yourself, you’re just, we’re both rather boring. (Link chuckles) I mean, if you were to put a hidden camera in our office and just see what happens on a daily basis, the way that we work through create problems, the conversations that we have, you’d be like, I feel like I’m looking at professor’s office hours. – Ha, I got you! I got you! I’ve had a camera in our office for like two years. – You can release that, it’d be very boring. – And it’s so boring. I got you, man. You know, the thing is, I feel like I’ve been, I don’t know, I’ve been thinking more about this. It’s funny, you do 1500 episodes of a show and you feel like there’s nothing you can learn and you’re just on autopilot but I don’t think that’s the case at all, I think that these are things that, I remember we used to get in fights, man. Like in Fuquay when we first started doing Chia Lincoln, like we’d be telling stories and we wouldn’t like, I wouldn’t like a way that you said something or you wouldn’t like how I cut you off and didn’t let you finish a story or, we would just… We had so much to learn but the thing that I’m learning now is I’m actually seeing, and maybe this plays into people feeling sorry for me ’cause I don’t want people to feel sorry for me and say oh, Link’s the butt of the joke or everybody thinks he’s stupid, or maybe he is stupid and I feel sorry for him. I don’t want any of that because I think I’ve actually… The game show thing is a good example. But in pretty much every episode, I’m finding out how, more of my true instincts can be harnessed for comedy, and so the more honest I am, and I think I’ve been thinking about it more since we talked about the Instagram thing. When you talked about dude, you just do what you wanna do on Instagram, like you planning out something is, you’re short-circuiting your own comedic process. So dance like nobody’s watching. Anyway, I actually think that, in the exercise of doing that within the context of GMM and understanding what I’m trying to do that I’m just trying to… Thinking of it as suspending my intelligence and knowing that like okay, I’m not an idiot. I’m actually smart for being able to harness just raw instinct in this way. I actually feel better about it. (chuckles) But then a step further, I actually feel like that the show me is kind of a gateway to me introducing some of that back into my real life. I’ve taken as an exercise to just say, you know what, I’m going to… I’m gonna go on instinct. I’m gonna be experiencing this moment. I’m not gonna overthink it. I’m not going to be so serious or give into my anxiety or whatever maybe is what is instinctively in my normal life, the first concern that would enter my mind but then saying, you know what, this is what it’s like to have fun. And I think the exercise of doing the show builds the muscle of being able to let loose a little bit and then… So in the way that I play with the kids or hang out with Christy or when I get home from work and we’re all hanging out in the kitchen and it’s like, oh we’re playing music, and you know what, I’m just gonna, you know what, let’s dance. We funneled so much of that energy to your point of we’re boring into our work that from a practical standpoint, I felt like it’s all been drained out of me. So I don’t know maybe I’m getting a little too– – Well. – I’m just trying to, I’m actually trying to harness that in my every day life to just become generally stupid. – Well I think– – But you know what I mean. – I think what I was saying was that people might expect that if I were to just watch Rhett and Link having a conversation with each other, then it would be– – Hilarious. – It would be hilarious and as entertaining as an Ear Biscuit. – Right. – When in reality, it would probably be as entertaining as the last half hour of this Ear Biscuit, you know what I’m saying, which, you might be like oh this is the good stuff. They got very real. But you probably didn’t last a whole lot in the past 30 minutes. I’m just saying that that’s kinda how we talk to each other. For me… I feel like for me it’s not a question of I don’t have enough personality left over for my family. A lot of times it’s just an energy question or a time question because I gotta work on this thing. Even though I’m at home I gotta finish this thing and that’s a problem, but that’s not, that’s a different problem, that’s like a time management problem. – I wasn’t directing any of it at you. I think that the moments where we just embrace the sheer joy of what happens on the show and we heighten it I think is a skill that was like, okay, how can this cycle back ironically and the life could imitate art and I could benefit from it. So it was an interesting thought exercise. – Well along the same lines, I don’t even know if you were in this conversation with some of our close friends, we were talking about… I’m trying to figure out some things in therapy like we’ve been talking about, like being able to understand what my emotions are and deal with feelings and that kinda thing. But I think part of that is like we have, we’ve got a friend group and there’s a very high emotional intelligence in our friend group. Like significantly higher than I have sort of been close to for the majority of my life. – Mm-hmm. – Not judging you. Just saying just in terms of like greater friendships or whatever. And I mean they’re all legitimately just intelligent people but they’re also emotionally intelligent and what I mean by that is somebody’s going through something or somebody shares something and they just have just a level of insight and perspective that I’m kind of used to being, I like kinda being the guy who knows things in the room, right, you know that and it annoys you. And I understand that. But like, then a lot of places, I am the guy who knows things in the room, right? I’m not an expert on anything but I know a lot about a lot of things and so I tend to feel like I’ve got something to contribute but a lot of times with the group that we’ve gotten really close with, they’re so emotionally intelligent that I start to kinda feel like an idiot. And I’m like, I don’t know how to comfort this person. I don’t know what to say in this situation because that’s not how my brain works. I haven’t figured that out yet and so I’m just gonna kinda be quiet. And I’ve also done a second level of analysis. Again, we’ve hinted at the Enneagram and we will do an episode about it at some point. But again it’s the personality evaluation where there’s nine different personality types. I’m a three on the Enneagram which means I’m a performer, an achiever and one of the things that the threes do is that if they are not good at something, they don’t play the game. And so, engaging on an emotional level with somebody is something I’m not good at so I just don’t do it. Because I do the things that I can win at and that is a, and I didn’t really understand that’s how my personality worked until I started reading more in depth about the way threes are and it’s like, if they don’t have a good chance of winning the game, they do not participate. And they can actually be incredibly successful because they are good at a lot of things and they also only do the things they’re good at so you see them and you’re like, man they’re good at all the things that they do until you put them in an environment where they have to behave differently so the way this translates to the difference between me on the show and me in real life is that when I get into those situations where I feel like it’s a more intimate atmosphere, I become the quiet one. Where on the show, there’s no opportunity to be the quiet one. Neither one of us is the quiet one. We both could talk 100 miles an hour. We talk over each other constantly because we both want to be the ones to get the last word in. I think we both suffer from that and that’s one of the things that contributes to why we do what we do and we do it well. And so the thing I told our friends when I was talking is I actually think that my true self is more represented in the context of what I do as an entertainer than it is when I’m just in real life. When I am my more happy-go-lucky, in the moment, reacting, laughing, trying to make people laugh, thing that I do on the show, and even in the context of this, I’m still on a little bit. – Yeah. – My on is actually– – Letting something out. – A truer connection with who I am. It isn’t putting something on. In fact, the mask and the facade is the quiet, reserved Rhett who is afraid to enter into a certain situation for fear of not being able to win that situation because I frame it in the wrong way. – That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I think yeah, within the context of the show, you can experience legitimate emotion within a certain, a subset of emotions, right, that are like elation, as an example. – Well I think it goes to– – It’s a discovery. – Show you that– – Surprise. – Unbelievably– – Pain. – And thankfully. – Happiness. – We’ve created an environment on the show where we can be so comfortable, ’cause again, this is the thing that we didn’t get when we did, like if you go back and watch the old Online Nation clips, you look at that and you’re like, we were not comfortable. – Oh no. – Right? It was the peak of the evidence that there is out there of us not being comfortable in a entertainment setting. – Yeah. – But this show and GMM also represent these environments that we’ve created and we’ve been able to completely shape the environment so that we can just be our true selves. So it is ironic that it seems like oh you’re on and you’re acting, but my theory and I hear you saying the same thing is that well, actually, that’s who I am and when I go out and I navigate the real world, I turn that, it isn’t that I turn it on when I’m on the show, it’s that I turn it off when I’m in real life. – Yeah I think that we’ve… I think my question to the listener or to the Mythical Beasts watching GMM who complains about things that maybe they’re missing the comedy or they’re misinterpreting a comedic choice as an honest moment and then being disappointed and then being critical of it, I’m asking them to expand the way they view our performance in the show, to not shift but to include those things. I think that’s what I’m asking of them. And I know that it frustrates you a little more than it does to me because it kinda, as we’ve discussed, it goes to you. But I think for you maybe there’s an opportunity to see, I think you just described the beauty of what the show, the opportunity it gives you as a person and me as a person to experience things that can then inspire who we are in our normal lives. And those are the things that people, they latch, those true moments, if they latch onto them so hard and make them so precious that they can’t take the other comedic bits, it’s like, you can’t fault ’em for it. Because it’s also a very, it’s kind of the heart and soul of our show because like– – We’ve created an environment where we’re authentic and so then to get upset with them for being, for doing a character or doing a bit and having a problem with it, it’s yeah. – It’s kind of a meeting in the middle. – I just wanna have my cake and eat it too. – Yeah taking that criticism as an, you can invert it as a compliment that like, the thing that attracts them to the show is the heart and soul of the show and it’s our true selves coming through and they can’t even take it when we make a choice that deviates from it so– – I think– – Maybe that’ll just help, just help you process it. – Well and also we talked about this a little bit is I think that unfortunately the people who have an issue with these types of things are also for whatever reason, the personality profile is they’re more likely to engage online, and so the people who might actually appreciate– – And I think ultimately we’re different people and I think better people because of fielding that. As painful or frustrating as it may be sometimes too, so I’ll even go that for. You need to be thankful for it. – I don’t disagree with that I’m just saying that one of the things that makes it difficult is that I know that there are people out there who appreciate but you’re likely to get a comment about something that they don’t like than they do like. We get so many, when we meet fans in meet and greet lines at shows, I’m always surprised with how many people have Cotton Candy Randy t-shirts on and say I love Cotton Candy Randy. And I’m like well why don’t you say something on the internet about it? (laughs) You know what I’m saying? It’s like, and so– – Well do you want a comment or do you want them to buy a shirt? – Well how about both? No but you’re right and again, I also don’t wanna make it seem like, I mean I’m talking about these things because you asked this question. And I talked about it the other day because it was in the context of the conversation that we were having. I don’t spend a significant portion of my time, like not even a, I don’t even spend an insignificant portion of my time, like I spend barely any time thinking about this particular thing and being frustrated about it. I spend– – Yeah. We didn’t talk about it after that moment. – Yeah I spend the vast majority of my time just trying to come up with something to entertain. And that’s pretty much probably to a fault, that’s what I do with almost all of my time. So I don’t, I’m not sitting around stewing about any of this stuff, it’s just, if you bring it up and then you start talking about it, I get a little frustrated about it. But I don’t sit around frustrated on a regular basis about it so I don’t want anybody to think that, so no need to apologize to me if you’ve said things and you’re like, oh I feel bad. I told Rhett he was mean, I need to apologize to him. I don’t need your apologies. And I’m gonna be okay. – All right guys, thank you for hanging out with us and allowing us to psychoanalyze ourselves and each other. Let us know, #EarBiscuits, whatever you wanna let us know. Weigh in on the conversation. We appreciate that. Tell people about this podcast so they can listen to it too. – How would you describe it? – Let us know, #EarBiscuits. – Describe it to a friend and then tell us how you described it and tell us what they say. – That’s good. That’s good, speak at you next week. (electronic music) To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. – [Rhett] To watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist to the left. – [Link] And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. – [Rhett] If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your Mythical best. (electronic music)